


Resist [Mass Effect AU]

by ocheeva



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-18
Updated: 2014-03-07
Packaged: 2017-12-27 00:11:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/971947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ocheeva/pseuds/ocheeva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>.:Shepard slowly walks towards him, fiery green eyes trained on his own cold blue and Saren pauses. He does not think of her in terms of her humanity right now, thinks of her not as a person at all but as something undeniable, unignorable - like a building stone of the universe itself; matter, mass, evolution, entropy, Shepard - and he doesn’t want to die, wonders if she who can resist the temptation Sovereign offers can also make him resist:. AU in which Saren remains alive at the end of the first game, for better or worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“You could have resisted. You could have fought! Instead, you surrendered. You quit.” 

Shepard’s words are burning flames and shards of ice against his skin, his mind, and he should shrug them off but they are bang-bang-banging their way through the barriers of rationality he’s been trying to put up ever since Sovereign warped his weak organic body into a marvel of symbiosis between flesh and technology. This human is so small compared to him, Saren, barely half his size and inferior in every way... and still she’s hunted him and the creature too old to comprehend across the galaxy, has found their secrets and plans and obliterated them to the point where even the ship which is so much more than a ship became impressed, wanted her. Now the words falling from her lips are _poison made to weaken your resolve_ ringing so true that they penetrate all his thoughts, wrap around his mind like they did on Virmire and he wants her to be right, wants it more than he ever wanted power.

“Maybe you’re right... Maybe there is still a chance for... for-” He feels his insides twist as his body rejects what his mind accepts, feels a physical bone-crushing pain rush through his body. “The implants... Sovereign is too strong. I’m sorry. It is too late for me.”

“There is still one way to stop this, if you’ve got the guts.” She lowers her pistol and meets his gaze. The resolve in her eyes gives him strength to resist the unnatural urge to _shoot her hurt her kill her destroy this organic vermin that thinks it can oppose us you are so much better_ and maybe she is his only salvation.

“Goodbye, Shepard. Thank you.”

He raises his gun, placing it just under his jaw and the feeling of cold metal against warm skin is reassuring and safe, the experience entirely his own. So little has been his for so long, and he takes a moment too long to allow himself these last seconds of being himself and in that moment he fully accepts that Shepard has been right all along, that Saren has been a tool for the Reaper and there is something familliar there-

“Wait.”

Shepard slowly walks towards him, fiery green eyes trained on his own cold blue and Saren pauses. He does not think of her in terms of her humanity right now, thinks of her not as a person at all but as something undeniable, unignorable - like a building stone of the universe itself; matter, mass, evolution, entropy, Shepard - and he doesn’t want to die, wonders if she who can resist the temptation Sovereign offers can also make him resist. He has been thinking so much about Shepard’s words on Virmire, has been wondering about her convictions and why they strikes a chord within him and now it seems as though she is offering him salvation despite what she’s sacrificed to end him. But how can she possibly undo the infection in his thoughts?

xxx  
xxx

“Shepard, what are you-” Kaidan starts, but interrupts himself when it is blatantly obvious that he will be ignored no matter what he says. He wishes she would explain, though, because this... she’s been so focused on spilling Saren’s blood ever since Eden Prime and the one-eighty is a bit too strange. Doubt settles in his mind; is Shepard, too, indoctrinated? Have all these Ciphers and visions and contact with Sovereign taken her mind away? If so, can he pull the trigger? He’s not sure. He’s not sure Garrus will be able to, either, and so he just watches his commanding officer, scared he will have to choose between her life and his own.

xxx  
xxx

Shepard is like a blazing fire, burning with even more intensity than the pain that encompasses Saren’s entire being and right now it is not important that she has been opposing, resisting him for months. 

“Your mind isn’t lost yet. _Fight it_ ”, she says as she steadily approaches him and with the Reaper trying to tear his thoughts apart the voice is a welcome anchor in a churning ocean of conflicting impressions and instincts, none of them his own - maybe all of them his own, buried under years of someone, some _thing_ else’s will.

Shepard holds up an OSD, the surface of it reflecting the light of the flames and even though it is so small, it looks bright enough to shine into any black hole; a beacon of salvation.

“I can override the systems. I can fix all of this.” The ghost of an expression of disgust passes over her features. “ _We_ can fix this. You’ve just got to _let me get to the control panel_.” 

Saren says nothing, just takes a lurching step forward, forgetting that he stands atop a glider and falls onto the edge of the platform beneath him, his left shoulder taking the full force of the impact and the pain is so, so good. Sharp and clear it seems to cut through even more of the strange thoughts inhabiting his mind as he lies by Shepard’s feet when she opens the ward arms, commands a fleet, saves the Council - easily, casually, as if it’s second nature to her.

But Saren cannot watch her, caught between hatred and admiration, because he is fighting his own battle; a battle for his mind now that he truly realises that it is not his own, that it hasn’t been for so long. It is as though he is buried under miles of someone else’s convictions and has to get to the surface while constantly caught by undercurrents and a mental equivalent of deep-sea monsters. All the while, _she_ stares down at him, her gaze as firm on his as her hand on her sidearm. He feels feverish, helpless as he can only groan in agony while his body feels as though it is on fire, all the tech from Sovereign burning him from inside.

Meanwhile, the Reaper whispers to him, urgently trying to convince him that the human _wants_ him to suffer, takes a perverse pleasure in it like all humans do - didn’t he see that time and time again during the battle for Shanxi? And if Sovereign is destroyed, the whole galaxy will perish, the other Reapers turning Palaven and all its colonies to seas of death and fire, eradicating the turian race.

Images of what happened to the protheans flash before his eyes. He knows what will happen, knows that Sovereign wants something better for the organics, wants them to be useful - master the synthetics and become one with them. Saren is the proof that it can be done, already part synthetic and so much stronger, so much faster, so much _better_. He is the last hope for his species, for all species and should he not allow others to experience this pin _nacle of evolution and accept the praise and admiration of everyone else who will ascend into perfection, be their leader in this new world order because who understands it better? Give in give in give in-_

“ _No_.”

His voice is so much stronger than he expected, clearly audible despite the sounds of battle, alarms, raging fires. Shepard takes half a step away from him, watches, turns away.

“If he beats the Reaper, we know it’s doable. That’s info we can use. If he can’t do it...” she says and there’s the hiss and click of a gun unfolding. Saren doesn’t have to look to know that its muzzle is aimed at his head.

He moves a hand to support himself better. His arm brushes against the tubes hanging by his side and he recoils a little in repulsion over how willingly he allowed the machine to to do this to him. But he believed, truly and unquestionably that he could save people, at least his own people, from annihilation but now it seems that the poison of indoctrination has gotten in too deep, wrapped itself around his spine.

The human resisted. Will I be lesser than her?

The thought is clearly his own, angry and hard. He knows the answer, the only possibly answer, and with a groan he grabs the tubes and rips them out. It is not much but it’s something, an action of defiance, resistance and the world goes dark as Sovereign growls inside Saren’s head and screams outside of it as its shields flicker and fall.

xxx  
xxx

Garrus keeps his rifle trained on Saren’s head, mandibles flickering with fury. He wants to pull the trigger, just end it all, but Shepard has earned his trust and he will only do it if there is a reason to... not that allying oneself with the Reapers and planning the destruction of all organic life isn’t a damn good reason as it is. He glances up at Shepard, who stands by the console with her eyes on her omni-tool, her mind with the fleet attacking Sovereign. 

He could shoot. Claim Saren was reaching for his own gun. Kaidan is looking at Shepard, too, and wouldn’t be able to support or deny it.

He should shoot. For everything the Spectre has done. For everyone on Eden Prime. For Chief Williams. For giving that asari to the Thorian. For letting the geth kill so many colonists on Feros. Shepard should want him to shoot - she’s assured them all that she would kill Saren, make him pay, and now she’s just standing there with the other turian still breathing in her presence. It is wrong on so many levels and Garrus’ finger is gently brushing the trigger as the man by Shepard’s feet moves his hand. The shot goes off on instinct, a bullet piercing the kinetic barriers and burying itself in Saren’s shoulder and while there is a cry of pain, it is nothing compared to the noise the Reaper makes. 

xxx  
xxx

_...silencesilencesilence no song to guide him no reassuring hum nothingnothing-_

Nothing except five-fingered hands at his throat feeling for a pulse and the voice that condemned him to darkness telling him to wake up, her words rasping against her dry throat. He breathes and her fingers retract from the rough skin just under his jaw, he opens his eyes and his vision is filled by the muzzle of an assault rifle.

“You all there?” she asks and his mind fees hollowed out. There is something else, too, like he hears her differently; as if her voice - now filled with venom instead of conviction - comes through unfiltered.

“My mind is my own”, he replies, using the same words he shared with her on Virmire but they feel like truth this time.

“Not sure if that’s an improvement.” She lowers her gun and he glares up at her face. She is framed by the warm glow of fire and the cold light of Widow, making her features unbearably sharp. Parts of Sovereign lie scattered all around them. It ooks as though she brought the Reaper down herself, tore it apart with her own two hands and that determination and rage that almost matches Saren’s own. He almost appreciates the image despite the fact that she belongs to such a sad, weak species but keeps from it because-

Because there should be voices there, diverging his train of thought with hot whispers about her inferiority, words burning away his resistance, gentle suggestions to make him focus on his hatred for humans. They have been there for so long and Saren feels fearful when he realises that his mind was stolen from him years ago, feels resentful when he realises that _Shepard_ was the one to break Sovereign’s hold - one that went all the way into his bones, skull, deep in his lungs and all the way to the sharp tips of his talons.

But she saved him. Saved him and doomed the galaxy and he is not certain what to make of this woman whose back is turned to him and whose leg is obviously injured as alien red blood drips onto the floor from a crack in her armour. He finds it strange, so strange that Shepard bleeds like every other organic because surely she is more than any of them.

xxx  
xxx

Fire and blood obscures David Anderson’s vision from the delicate white metal arches and fields of green, green grass. Even the synthetic sun appears to glow with a harsh orange light that is al wrong, like a sunset after a storm rather than the constant day cycle in the Presidium Ring.

He runs, keeping pace with the human C-Sec officers just ahead of him. They tried to make him stay behind at the Embassy but nothing could keep him there, not now, not wen he knows Shepard is in the Council chambers, when he fervently hopes she will meet him breathing and proud and every bit the soldier she is, the best one he’s had under his command.

The elevator is unlocked but one of the officers claim that something is wrong, that the glass is broken somewhere outside the artificial atmosphere that clings to the station and Anderson grabs her, tells her with urgency that they _need_ to get to the Presidium Tower. She meets his gaze, unflinching, before bringing up her omni-tool to find an alternate route.

He follows her as she climbs through Keeper tunnels and corridors he has never seen, passages that run like blood vessels through the immense Citadel and eventually they drop down from a ceiling panel in front of the entrance to the Council chambers. Anderson bursts through the door, expecting a battle but finding silence and it takes so long, too long until Alenko and Vakarian are uncovered. Neither of them bleeds. Anderson asks for Shepard, and he might not ever have been good at reading turian facial expressions, but Garrus’ eyes and the way his mandibles curve down tells him more than he ever wanted to know and he has to force himself to look at the chunk of Reaper that juts out from the cold white floor.

xxx  
xxx

Garrus feels so heavy, his limbs slow and unresponsive. This final battle was supposed to be a triumph, he and Shepard side by side, finishing the threat that had brought them together out of necessity. He thinks of her as a mentor and has hoped she would become a friend, someone to take a drink with in off-duty hours, someone to provide stability and sense in a world that slowly turns away from both. He thinks - he thought that he would still find a place aboard the Normandy, once he finished Spectre training, a steady and capable gun by her eight until the last Reaper fell.

He cannot believe that someone as tough, unbreakable as the human he respects and admires so much would die in such a way. An accident. A coincidence. It is difficult to fathom, and he looks back at the piece of Sovereign that makes up her headstone… and pauses.

Slow steps approach and blood beats loudly in his ears. He has no way of knowing if it is her or Saren, his guts feeling as though they’re twisting in anticipation, and then his heart sinks.

xxx  
xxx

Saren leans heavily on her, relying on her strength to help him forward. He feels sick but isn’t certain if it is because she carries him through this, too, or if it has to do with the way his implants seem to at once dig deeper into his bones and being torn out of his skin.

Three C-Sec officers - humans, of course, and that disgusts him - approach them, two slipping under his arms to keep him upright, one slapping holographic handcuffs around his wrists and a non-officer drapes Shepard’s arm around his shoulders, his teeth ground together so hard his jaw stands out sharply, stretching his soft skin. She calls him Kaidan, says she’s fine and a smile curves along her mouth like the blade of a knife as she looks at Anderson.

“So this is it, Shepard?” Saren wheezes, staring at her over the shoulder of the man called Kaidan. “You leave me to rot in prison after all this?”

She returns his gaze, unwavering, unyielding. “Killing you would have been too merciful.”

And with that she leaves and he is left behind and a part of him wants her to remain because she is the only solid, the only constant, the only thing he can rely on without seductive whispers and trickles of new tech along his veins.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the Normandy SR-1 is attacked and Shepard is lost, the galaxy changes - for everyone.

Saren’s trial is still only in a preparation stage; it seems the Council is either stalling because they have no idea what to actually do with him or because they are going to go through every transgression he’s made in the past few months. He knows that if it is the latter, he might have to wait for a very long time. 

His waiting is interrupted once and he is not sure if it has been days or weeks since someone spoke to him and didn’t just leave trays of food. She is not a welcome sight but she is the only person he wants to see. He hates her but his hatred is comfortable, something as reliable as her sharp gaze and the contempt resting like a mask over her features.

“Did you decide a trial wasn’t satisfactory enough?” he asks, only glancing at her out of the corner of his eye.

She just stares at him, not answering. “Alliance Command tasked me with cleaning your geth up. Got anything I can work with?”

He stares back, disbelieving. “Why would I help you?” At the back of his mind, there are words itching to come out, words of how he was never truly in control of the geth but he holds back, unwilling to share anything with this woman who has left him with nothing.

“Could’ve been a few years less in prison if you’d been willing to cooperate”, she says with a shrug and leaves when he says nothing.

xxx  
xxx

Shepard watches her ship getting ripped to pieces by silent explosions as she hangs in the blackness of space, floating, tethered to nothing and her eyes are wide, wide, wide but not with fear and for a few seconds she is so alive.

She dies with her lungs on fire and lips rapidly cooling, body still twisting to reach the leak and trap the remaining oxygen, soul ripping at the seams when ancient whispers try to reach through to her. The body so many used to know as a powerful, relentless weapon is pushed towards the glittering snow-covered surface of Alchera by the blast of the Normandy’s now destroyed drive core 

and

falls.

What used to be her torso bursts open on impact, blood and entrails staining the snow red and the bones of her ribcage curve toward the sky as the ship that let her live between stars crashes around her, becomes her tombstone.

xxx  
xxx

They are silent, their faces leaden as the escape pods are picked up and Joker shouts at the soldiers to _get her, she’s still out there_! and their captain asks _who? there are no life signatures anywhere near the wreckage_ and they all fall silent.

There is no room for tears or anger. They look around - Adams, Chakwas, Joker, Kaidan, Tali and Liara - and their features moving into stiff emotionless masks as they’re led to the captain’s quarters for privacy. They call Garrus several times before he answers and disconnects as soon as they tell him. Wrex tells them to get in touch again when she returns; his way of saying that they have nothing in common any more, they assume.

When they call Anderson he tells them he already knows and sits silent for a long time before saying he’ll meet them when they dock.

No one speaks after that, their words lying thick and heavy in their throats, caught behind clenched teeth as word spreads that the galaxy has lost its brightest light.

xxx  
xxx

It takes days before Saren finds out because he hasn’t been granted access to the extranet and the vid screen in his cell only shows a handful of channels, all of them either broadcasting educational programs or news and he has found that the latter talk of him too often and always with disapproval. It is as if the galaxy has forgotten who he was, that he used to be someone they admired and feared. Someone ruthless, sure, but also driven and charming and someone who always completed the job. Someone who protected them, tried to save them when he was made aware of the threat to the galaxy. He resents how easily they ignored all that the moment he fell from grace, loathes how they praise Shepard, foolishly thinking that she is better - kinder, gentler. They don’t know her like he knows her. They haven’t seen the rage and fire in her eyes, they know nothing of the way she cleared out the research base on Noveria, slaughtering everyone who so much as whispered resistance. 

He knows and doesn’t want to listen to sickeningly sweet words wrapping around lies of greatness and so it is not until his cell door opens and Garrus walks in that he finds out that something is amiss. The other turian’s face is tight, as if relaxing even a fraction would make him fall apart and Saren is so bored and so alone that he is tempted to push the younger man over the edge, break him and the constraints of boredom both, but is stopped as the heavy words that have changed the galaxy fall between them.

“Shepard’s dead.”

Garrus feels as though something in his throat blocks his words but they come out anyway and the complete disbelief of expression crossing Saren’s features makes him feel slightly better, momentarily; as if even the discharged Spectre has seen Shepard’s worth and finds this single fact impossible. 

“How?”

“Unknown ship attacked the Normandy.” He considers mentioning that she died saving Joker - and a tiny part of him resents the helmsman for being alive when Shepard isn’t - but doesn’t think Saren deserves to know about her final act of good. 

“Why are you telling me this?” There’s disgust in Saren’s voice. Impatience, too..

Garrus turns away as he says, “Because she’d want you to know.”

It’s true. He wasn’t on the Normandy during the attack, but he knows Shepard. Knew Shepard. Her influence on him is still so strong that it feels wrong to think of her in the past tense because during the months he served under her she came to be his closest friend, his mentor and so much more than he can truly comprehend because she had a way of seeing people and helping them be the best that they could. She asked everything of him - of all of them - and even more of herself. 

The door closes behind him, a guard locking it firmly, once again separating Saren from the outside and Garrus walks away. He doesn’t really want to go, because this is a Citadel in grief over the woman who saved them and every corner seems to hold memories of her fiery gaze and forceful voice, but he wants to linger at C-Sec even less.

xxx  
xxx

Synthetic-blue eyes stare at the outline of the door, the red holographic panel in the center. Shepard’s life was once in Saren’s hands, talons pushing against the soft soft skin of her warm throat and she still wouldn’t yield, wouldn’t submit, wouldn’t let him tear her open and crush that curved spine. If he was unable to kill her then, what could possibly have taken her life? Nothing as mundane as fire or bullets because she is too good, nothing as infinite as a Reaper because he knows he would know if that had been, a buzzing still lingering somewhere in his bones.

He turns the holo-screen on, selecting the first news channel that comes to mind and sits through an hour of unimportant babble before her name is mentioned, and even then all they speak of is her supposed heroism. Nothing of what they say is news to Saren - he knows her service record - but the Shepard they talk about is a Shepard who is a stranger to him and he wonders, annoyed, how the image of someone so straightforward can be so warped.

xxx  
xxx

It takes two days before there is anything of substance. The security feeds from the Normandy have been leaked and three supposed experts - two humans, one turian - try to sound as though they know what they’re talking about as they discuss the colour of the flames and the weapon that cuts through the hull with very little resistance. They mention heat and lasers and other things that have no meaning to Saren as he watches her, this woman who saved the galaxy just a couple of months ago, as she allows the crippled pilot’s life to take priority over her own.

It infuriates him. As much as he hates her, he knows that she is better - worth more - than the man who wastes time trying to save a ship that is falling apart beneath his feet. 

He watches her struggle for air, fight until the very last breath as she drifts towards a planet shrouded in ice and when she disappears, hitting atmo and burning as bright as the distant stars, he experiences a thoroughly unexpected emptiness.

This is not the way it is meant to end.


	3. Chapter 3

When a person is missing or dead, whole worlds can feel depopulated.

Saren has no warm feelings toward Shepard unless you can count the burning rage that sometimes tears through his chest, but he feels as though she, in her complexity, understood him. Something in her eyes suggested that she’d known his intention had been to keep the galaxy safe, that she’d known he hadn’t just said those words about saving more lives than had ever existed but actually meant them and without her out there, sailing the stars and causing explosions that stay on your retinae, the galaxy feels significantly emptier.

She was supposed to be present for his trials. Instead, David Anderson takes her place as primary witness and speaks with the same heat he had in his voice when Kahlee Sanders’ life was endangered. Saren muses, involuntarily, that Shepard would never have ended up a hostage incapable of breaking out and is annoyed with himself when he realises what goes through his mind. This reluctant respect he has for her, which increases when he hears about how she destroyed the Thorian and the assumed number of geth she killed, is unwelcome but impossible to ignore and one day the grief hits him.

He sees her face, unwavering fiery eyes and soft mouth set in an odd faint grin, in an ad for the Alliance as he is escorted back to his cell by five guards. Her fingers are touching her temple in that strange human salute and a voice that is definitely not hers although it sounds like it encourages anyone who passes to _make humanity proud: join the Systems Alliance_ and it feels like a mockery because they, the people she has worked and bled and killed for, don’t know her. 

He does. 

He might not know her desires or wishes when she was capable of having them, might not know how she sounded when she laughed, might not know what she used to enjoy or dislike or why she was the way she was but her life was in his hands, once, and he saw her more clearly than he thinks her superiors ever did.

xxx  
xxx

_three months_

The hours in the prison are like squares, neatly fitting in next to each other, all the same in size, shape and colour. 

Nothing happens. 

Nothing changes the pattern.

Saren stares at the walls and thinks of his brother. Food is delivered and empty trays are taken away. He is questioned by a salarian once a week, goes to the Council chambers once a week and both occasions are always the same, questions asked in new ways but wanting to hear the same thing and eventually the Council and the public manage to delude themselves into thinking that Saren was just insane and Sovereign was a geth ship. 

He doesn’t correct them.

xxx  
xxx

_six months_

One day, her image is finally gone from the ad and he is glad to be rid of her piercing gaze but feels... emptier. The woman who replaces her has green eyes and red hair just like she did, but this one looks fake and unnatural in comparison. 

xxx  
xxx

_one year_

The days in the room pass with intolerable slowness, running together like the colours in a jar of used paintbrushes, merging into a uniform, leaden gray.

There are still whispers out there, somewhere beyond the edge of his consciousness. He has been on several operating tables over the past year, countless doctors peering at the oddities of his physique and he knows that they will never be able to extract every piece of Reaper technology. Impossibly tiny and incredibly complex things crawl into his bone marrow every time a scalpel sinks into his flesh, every time his carapace is broken and mended again.

Saren does not listen. The galaxy is doomed anyway.

xxx  
xxx

_one year, eight months_

He feels as though he should be angrier. With the Council for not listening to him, with Shepard for stopping him, with Nihlus for being trusting and _not_ stopping him, with the Reapers for taking Desolas’ mind and with nearly every government official in Citadel space for turning their backs on him, treating his words like lies made up by a deranged mind.

What he feels instead is unfamilliar hopelessness. They could strike back against the Reapers, prepare themselves, do something - anything, but the Council seems to think that if they lie to themselves enough the truth of the threat to go away and he has no desire to change their minds.

Quietly he picks at himself, talons exploring new holes and patches where doctors have removed Reaper tech and attempted to put him back together. His jaw is perforated, what used to be metal is now hollow spaces that makes his sighs sound off. It is his body, his skin, his blood and bones but it feels alien.

xxx  
xxx

_two years, one month, eleven days_

He stares at his lunch - colourless, tasteless - and throws it at the wall. His action is without malice or anger, without any particular emotion. He has lived through two years of solitude and silence, is so far beyond anger that what used to be rage-fuelled outbursts are mere routine. The tray clatters to the floor, plastic dinnerware laying around it. It has been well over a year since he was last served anything that wasn’t dry, and still the wall opposite his bed is discoloured from food stains that have been thoroughly cleaned so many times. 

In a day or two he will be force-fed, tubes snaking into his skin. It will be familliar and grotesque and something that breaks the regular pattern of his prison life. It will be something he can control - it is small, petty, unbearably childish but perhaps the only thing that keeps him moderately sane with the still pressing silence from his mind, and it is easier to focus on hunger pains than thoughts of Desolas. Nihlus. 

Shepard.

He stands up and grabs the edge of the bed, shakes it - it is welded to the floor and wall, of course, but if he keeps it up someone will come through the door and talk to him like child, explain the futility and that if he doesn’t stop he’ll never get to move outside his cell. As if this is something that would be possible anyway - the Council is too aware of his abilities, know that he is capable of just about anything and would never risk him influencing other prisoners. They even exchange his guards so often and so irregularly the few times he does get out - for psych evals, medical examinations, questioning - that he almost considers being flattered.

When footsteps and muffled voices are heard outside he lets go of the bedframe, satisfied that he has manipulated those who have imprisoned him and ashamed that he has sunken so low. He was the right hand of the Council once, the best of the galaxy’s elite. So good that he got away with so much, and still he wanted more. Still wants more, but thinks that if he can just have a scrap of the power he once wielded like a weapon he will feel whole again and considers lunging for the throat of whoever comes through the door first, longing to feel someone else’s pulse against his hand, desiring blood running down his fingers and staining the white-tiled floor but his hand remains by his side as his eyes catch the armoured curve of a hip, a white and red stripe, a familliar _N7_.

She doesn’t look the same. The scars through her eyebrow, on her lip are gone and replaced with glowing red cracks in her skin. Her eyes are still ablaze with anger, but there is something more there too - red and piercing, perhaps just a trick of the light. But her mouth set in a hard expression and her stance telling him that she is ready for a fight is the same and he has been without ghosts in his mind for long enough to know that she is real. Breath, blood, bones.

“Shepard”, he says, the shape of her name strange in his mouth.

“I’m on a mission.” She doesn’t greet him, doesn’t explain, just says what she’s there to say. “Colonists in the Terminus systems are being abducted. I’m going to stop that and need the best people the galaxy has to offer. I despise you” - but there is no malice in her voice; she is merely stating a fact - “but you get results. Come with me and follow my orders and maybe you won’t spend the next decade here while the Council tries to decide what to do with you.”

He stares at her, dry-throated and unwilling to believe the words that fall from her lips, wanting to dismiss her and turn away but desiring to get away so much that the idea of serving under her seems unbearably tempting.

“I still think this is a terrible idea”, says another human behind Shepard’s shoulder - female, dark-haired, clothes like a secondary skin and displaying a symbol Saren has come across before. He is disgusted but unsurprised that Shepard has chosen to make Cerberus her allies, but wastes no time thinking about it as this undoubtedly presents him with an opportunity.

“I hate to agree with your XO, Shepard, but I’ll make an exception this once”, adds a turian voice from outside the door - Saren has only met the man twice but assumes that it is Garrus and something in his stomach turns at the thought of one of his own people remaining with a human even after she chooses to align herself with an organisation dedicated to enslave all other sentient life in the galaxy. The fact that Saren is about to follow the same human under the same conditions is beside the point, because _he_ has a good reason.

“I accept”, he says and chooses to ignore her cold smile when she cuffs him, because within minutes they are moving through C-Sec toward the elevator and his first taste of freedom in over two years.


	4. Chapter 4

Shepard’s new ship looks as odd as her first, human and turian structures entangled in a way that makes it difficult to discern what originates from which culture. It looks as sleek and silent and strong as its predecessor which dealt the killing blow to Sovereign and Saren thinks of all the great things he could do with a ship like this, thinks how hotly his hatred for Shepard burns when he sees _Normandy_ written along the side of the elegantly curved hull.

She had everything taken from her, ship and cause and breath, but someone thought _her_ worthy of spending everything on. Someone thought it wasn’t enough to bring a glorified soldier back from death but gave her everything she’d lost and asked nothing of her that she would not have done anyway. Saren stares at the back of her head and clenches his jaw tight, hating her more because no one would do a similar thing for him despite the fact that very few things are inherently different about them.

He shuts down that train of thought as they enter and begin to move through the ship, his gaze travelling across the CIC and the exclusively human ship crew. They pretend not to gawk but he can feel the tension, the waiting for him to disappear again now that his presence has been confirmed so they can gossip and whisper triumphantly about how he serves under Shepard now, how she has so completely humiliated him and as soon as that thought enters his head he cannot shake it off, suddenly convinced that is the reason she decided to bring him along. When she and Garrus make a stop in the armoury, letting the dark-haired woman with contempt like a mask over her face lead Saren a bit further into the ship, he is relieved to be away from her for the moment.

She introduces herself, this Miranda, and is short and precise when she confirms that she works for Cerberus as the leader for Project Lazarus and that their mission is to investigate the missing colonists. The Reapers are not mentioned but they hang in the air, their infinity slipping into the silences between words even as Miranda explains that Saren will be equipped with a very basic omni-tool without extranet access.

“What is Project Lazarus?” he interrupts her in the middle of a sentence, deliberately not listening. It annoys her, as he predicted.

“An independent cell put together to bring Commander Shepard back”, she replies, her tone smooth and casual. As if beating death is not a marvellous scientific breakthrough. As if the time, skill and money that must have been spent on this singular task are not astonishing and could not have been spent on another solution, on another way of dealing with the Collectors. This woman clearly does not care for Shepard and is just as clearly intelligent - despite being human - enough to have found that other solution. So why Shepard? Why this project with a ridiculously low probability of success?

Saren is mid-thought as the door opens and for a moment he is unsure what is wrong about Shepard’s appearance, wondering why she seems so much smaller, more fragile, breakable. The confusion doesn’t even last for a second, never makes it to his face; this is merely the first time he has seen her without armour and there is something unbearably tempting about how avaliable she is, only air and skin and cloth separating his talons from her heart, only feet between his teeth and her jugular. But he knows that should he act, he will be returned to the maddeningly blank prison cell and if she has been brought back once she can be again. He is not particularly interested in finding out what she’s capable of when fuelled by revenge, and he figures he owes her something for his relative freedom - to not kill her, if nothing else.

He looks at her, studies the way she barely registers the other woman’s presence, the way she slowly paces the length of the room as if this, the two of them: him and her, is merely routine. She tells him that he will be escorted by an armed crewman or member of her team at all times, that he will get a bunk in the cargo hold, and he contemplates the fact that nothing about her the way she is now is particularly intimidating. Compared to him she is short, slim, her body suggesting that she can be broken too easily and it once again annoys him that the galaxy is so in awe with this inferior creature who

_caught you, broke you, freed you_

in reality only has as much power as she has thermal clips. Even the Cerberus woman seems to respect Shepard’s accomplishments, if not the soldier herself, despite her own astounding feat of cheating death. Despite her apparent dislike for Shepard as a person, which she further establishes when she also points out that because of the security risk Saren’s presence poses, the ship’s A.I. will monitor him constantly and is free to drop kinetic barriers to seal him in the moment he displays threatening or unstable behaviour.

Saren grins faintly at this, folding his arms and leaning back.

“Your ship has an A.I.”, he says, voice pleased and when he looks into her eyes he sees the tightening of her mouth, a brightness to the red gleam hiding under her skin. “It seems your death has made us even more alike. You’re not even fully human anymore.”

-  
-

She is too good to fall for his prodding, too good to allow him to find cracks he can bend open with long fingers and sharp talons. Especially in front of Miranda - Shepard doesn’t particularly care for Miranda’s opinion on her, but is well aware that the dark-haired woman will likely contact the man who has paid for both the Normandy and Shepard the moment she returns to her office. The Commander knows that she is needed and that she has certain freedom to do as she pleases - including freeing captive Spectres who planned the destruction of the galaxy not too long ago - but that pushing it too far, proving to be more of a liability than an asset to the Illusive Man, could leave her with nothing and an even worse reputation than before. Cerberus could easily claim that her freeing Saren was proof of indoctrination and if even the rogue organisation suggests that she is unreliable, she knows the galaxy will lie vulnerable and helpless when the Reapers come.

“This A.I. doesn’t tell me to attack colonies, and _I’m_ not making the mistake of trusting a machine.”

She looks away without giving him a chance to reply, tells Miranda to get Mordin to put the tracking chip in and almost wishes she could do it herself, break Saren’s skin and push the tiny piece of metal into his flesh, a hard knot to remind him that she has the power now. Instead, she walks out, careful not to let anger twist her features, trying not to feel his gaze on her back, her neck, tangled in her hair. With quick strides she moves through the armoury and the CIC before taking the elevator down to crew deck where she lets herself into the port side observation room and wordlessly demands the attention of the area’s only occupant.

“Hey, Shep!” the thief says, her voice as light as her movements when she shifts position on the couch. She seems about to speak, but her Commander doesn’t allow for an interruption.

“You said you needed help.” Shepard folds her arms, resting her weight on her back leg. “I figure that since we’re in the neighbourhood, we might as well take care of it now. I’ll plot a course and meet you by the shuttle when we’re in orbit.” She turns without waiting for acknowledgement, heading up to her quarters to write a report and gear up.

-  
-

Miranda appears unsurprised that Saren and Mordin Solus know of each other and doesn’t ask a single question beyond whether that fact is going to be a problem or not. The salarian assures her, facing away and gesturing for Saren to sit while he picks up a surgical knife, polished steel reflecting the light.

The procedure takes moments, a swipe of something moist and cold and then the flesh is numbed and the cut direct, precise, before a flat tiny disc is gently placed at the base of Saren’s skull, behind his jaw. He searches for it, later, when he sits on his cot in the cargo hold and tries to ignore the glances from the steady stream of people who apparently need something down here right now. There is nothing unfamilliar beneath his fingers, the scar fading quickly under its coating of medi-gel. But he remembers, will remember where it is so that once opportunity presents itself - and it will present itself eventually, he just needs to be cautious and patient - he can dig the chip out and escape.

There is no use plotting that eventual escape now, though, since he does not know how Shepard will operate with him by her side, doesn’t know how much time he will get to spend in the field and certainly not whether it is ever likely he will be brought to places where escape is possible. He knows Shepard and knows she is too clever to make the mistake he desperately needs her to make, but he also knows himself and is not too worried. 

The right time will come.

It will because it has to, because he doesn’t know how to survive if it doesn’t; too proud and strong and free to spend his days trapped behind bars or on her ship. The right time will come, he thinks, repeats it like a mantra while pretending to be uninterested in the activity around him and almost misses Shepard when she walks from the elevator to the shuttle, not looking at him.

Something flickers at the edge of his vision while he watches her, a dark hooded human shape stepping away from the wall and despite the fact that eyes have been on him since he left his cell, being watched in secret by this human unsettles him.

-  
-

Neither of the two women speak much as the Kodiak dips into atmo, descending towards Bekenstein’s capital city. The thief is busy making last-minute arrangements via her omni-tool; Shepard is busy looking out the window at a cityscape soaked in the warm sunlight of a late afternoon, briefly thinking that she hasn’t been on shore leave dirtside in a long time and that she has almost forgotten about sunsets.

-  
-

After a pickup and a change of clothes, they’re in a skycar and Shepard furrows her brow at Kasumi’s compliment, mildly uncomfortable without her armour and combat boots. There is a small shield-generator in the clasp at her throat, at least, but even though the young woman at her side assures her that their gear will be available to them shortly, she’d prefer to go in with guns blazing. It’s easier that way.

“Why a statue of Saren?” she asks as they go over the plan. Kasumi gives her a one-shoulder shrug, as carefree as Shepard will soon learn that she nearly always is.

“It was the only thing I was both willing to part with and unable to sell. No one wants to be associated with that mess, even in private, and I didn’t find the time to melt it down into gold bricks. This way it still serves a purpose.”

That almost draws a smile out of Shepard, the first one since she greeted Anderson.

-  
-

Once they’re in the vault and Shepard feels the reassuring weight of her armour over her shoulders, things finally go her way. She takes a moment to look at a few of Hock’s (no doubt illegaly obtained) pieces as they search for the greybox, and while she finds many of them beautiful she feels no compunction when she fires a bullet into one of the sculptures, effectively obliterating it, when Hock merely becomes annoying. She doesn’t know if there’s a plan or escape route once she’s ignited the crime lord’s fury and that is just the way she likes it, living on the very edge of mortal danger where every breath filling her lungs might be the last one.

Of course, she makes it out. She always does.


	5. Chapter 5

Shepard refuses to allow any emotion besides impatience show on her face when the hologram of a large, mostly empty room forms around her and the man who thinks himself her employer leans back in his chair.

“Shepard”, he says, pulling smoke into his lungs and she wishes he’d just get on with it. He is enjoying keeping her waiting far too much, is enjoying all the supposed power he has far too much. 

She folds her arms, leans her torso away from him. “I have a mission to take care of. Get on with it.”

He smiles. She doesn’t like it. 

“I hear you’ve brought someone on board, but I don’t recall giving you a dossier for him. I won’t make a habit of doubting your decisions - you get results, and that’s what matters - but it’s hardly wise to bring a turian who detests humanity on a mission dedicated to preserving our species.”

“I didn’t agree to do this so you could second-guess me every time I deviate from your plans. You want things to run differently, _you_ take command of the mission.”

“I’m just saying that you should keep an eye on him. I wouldn’t want my investment in you to go to waste.”

It angers her more than she’d like to admit. He speaks as if she owes him, as if she has asked for this. “I’m fully capable of dealing with the situation”, she retorts and terminates the call, but not before catching the Illusive Man’s eyes over who knows how many light years and the smirk at the corner of his mouth makes her want to punch him.

-  
-

She makes her rounds, talks to people, makes sure the ship is running efficiently and that everyone does their job - but it doesn’t feel like it used to on the SR-1, doesn’t feel like she’s in control and knows what each person’s duties entail or what she should expect from their reports. Miranda is good at running the ship. Too good. Sure, Shepard should be focused on the mission but she finds it difficult to fill the hours with just that and feels a need to fill every waking hour with… something. She’s fine, better, as soon as she’s groundside with bullets hammering into her barriers and bodies falling around her. It focuses her on what’s ahead, or so she’d like to think, denying that she maybe allows herself to be exposed for longer, more often, to feel the occasional hit of a slug burrowing into her skin and convince herself that she’s still human, still bleeding, still _Shepard_.

There are too many questions on her tongue but she’s not sure how to ask them and even less sure if she really wants answers.

Whether she was dead or not. there are two years between her and the rest of the galaxy. Two years when people mourned her and moved on, accepting her death and leaving her behind and there is something undeniably unsettling about that fact. Garrus does a fine job of pretending like nothing, like she was just on a different mission while he was in Spectre training and their separation has been insignificant, but his bandaged face and deep-rooted anger are constant reminders of her death, of both their mortality.

She shakes it off, wants to think of losing a friend like him even less than she wants to think of herself and steps out of the elevator, mildly surprised at the coincidence that the friend who just occupied her thoughts stands before her on the engineering deck, back turned to her, watching the hold.

-  
-

Garrus stands just outside the elevator in engineering, hands on the rail and eyes trained on the older turian one deck below him. He is... displeased, definitely, and something else that doesn’t fit into his vocabulary but nonetheless rests heavy and swirling in his chest. Maybe it has to do with the fact that everyone else on this ship has earned their place there, even the Cerberus people because as much as their allegiance with that despicable organisation - no matter what Miranda says there are no excuses for what they’ve done and one good deed doesn’t make up for all the easily avoidable deaths leading up to it - disgusts him, they’re dedicated to their current mission and there is a definite want to support Shepard tied in with that dedication. No matter what his personal opinions are on the people they’ve picked up already, each and every one of them is good at their job and he’s been with Shepard too long to doubt her decisions now.

Well, except in this case, because Saren Arterius doesn’t fit in with the rest. He didn’t earn his place here. Sure, every turian knows of his remarkable history within the military and the Spectres, his long list of accomplishments and even Shepard - dauntless, brilliant, unconquerable as she is - has some way left until her list is of equal length, even if she did order the destruction of a Reaper and returned from the dead. 

The cop-turned-mercenary breathes out slowly, about to return to the battery when he hears the hiss from the elevator doors opening. 

“Garrus.” 

Shepard’s voice is laced with surprise but not questioning and she says nothing as she walks up to him, stopping by his side and following his gaze. They watch Saren for a while, his hunched back and barely moving head and elbows leaning on knees and hands hanging limply, talons pointing at the floor.

“You know I don’t doubt your decisions”, Garrus says eventually and sees how Shepard turns her gaze to him out of the corner of his eye.

“But?”

“This just... feels strange, having him on the Normandy. Like the galaxy’s upside-down.” Again, he adds mentally, thinking of her improbable death and the two years of grief that followed, dispersed in a heartbeat once he spotted the N7 on her chestplate through his scope.

“I hear you. And the moment he becomes a problem, I have a bullet waiting to lodge itself in his brain. But until then it seems like we’ll need every capable shot, tech and biotic we can find and as long as we’re without the old crew I at least want people whose abilities I can count on. I’m prepared to trust him as much as I’m prepared to trust Cerberus, but he was a Spectre and that’s got to be good for something in the field.”

“Hm.” Garrus glances down at Shepard, moving his mandibles tensely. He knows the conversation is over and thus doesn’t offer further commentary, just watches her watching Saren until she walks away to continue her post-mission rounds. He likes that she still keeps to that habit. It offers some stability after the two chaotic years he lived without her and everything she gave him and the rest of her squad and maybe, he thinks, even this impostor-Normandy can become the kind of ship people should write legends about.

-  
-

Saren stands as she approaches, folds his arms as he watches her. His gaze sinks into her skin, pierces her bones. She is once again unarmoured and he is once again noticing the smallness of her, the frailty of her skin and bones and lungs and wonders if he will have to reevaluate her every time he sees her. 

He remembers her neck in his hand, the way her flesh gave under the fingers of the geth arm welded to his shoulder but he does not remember equating that to weakness. Perhaps because she had not yet died. Now... now he sees that she is made of easily-destroyed matter, sinew and synapses rather than fire and solid fury. Someone who can be beaten. Someone who does not have to stay in his way.

“You don’t like me and the feeling is mutual but we’ll both have to deal with each other’s company for a while because we have a problem on our hands and I find myself in need of a new team”, she says without a word of greeting and offers no explanation, no word on where the rest of her old team is - he knows Garrus is on board, has seen the other turian stare down into the cargo hold from the engineering deck - and he doesn’t really care, he tells himself, but of course there is the hint of a question forming at the back of his mind because he knows how the others fought and in one case died for her. Perhaps the others went down with her ship and were not deemed worthy of resurrection. He would not be surprised. A quarian child, a krogan mercenary and an unremarkable human - what sort of a crew is that for a woman who can impress a Reaper? The asari, the Prothean expert might have been useful once upon a time but now that the secret of the Conduit is known he sees no further use for her, and cannot imagine why Shepard would either, should the asari still live.

“The Collectors”, he notes, folding his arms, unconsciously mirroring her as she leans against a crate. 

“Good to see prison hasn’t ruined your cognitive ability. However, considering certain changes” - he notices her eyes falling to his side, where tubes once hung, where he is still scarred beneath his clothing - “I need to know if you’re as capable as you were. For starters, I noticed there were no mention of your biotics in the notes C-Sec transferred to me.”

His mandibles tighten in contempt, every inch of him despising that she has read every intimate detail researchers and scientists have put together when examining him and all the parts that were not him and he clenches his fists in anger thinking of how superior she must have felt while reading about how he allowed the Reaper to possess him, use him as a puppet and he tries to ignore the taste of the words as they move across his tongue.

“I got that power from Sovereign.”

“Huh.” The sound is noncommittal, as is her face. He unclenches one hand, reluctantly, uncertainly. This is not the Shepard he has come to expect and though it might have more to do with the fact that she is not chasing him, that he is not a threat than anything else, he cannot help but wonder if Cerberus and Miranda did something beyond rebuilding her body. “I hope that wasn’t where you got your combat skill too.”

Her words anger him and he’s certain she knows, thinks he can see it in the way she shifts her weight. Like she’s prepared to attack first and suddenly he’s sure she will but isn’t about to give her the chance. Maybe it’s instinct, maybe he wants to show her that he’s still capable and strong - whatever the reason, he gets to his feet and prepares to fight.

-  
-

Shepard is well aware that getting so close to Saren is reckless and dangerous, but she also knows that if they don’t do this now, on her ship rather than in the field where every rock could hide an unpleasant surprise for all she knows, she might very well end up dead again and she really doesn’t have time for that. Hell, humanity as a whole doesn’t have time for that. 

So she spreads her feet and curls into a fighting stance and avoids the turian’s knees and teeth and claws until those cold synthetic eyes flash blue into her own, pierced with cybernetic red, when she deliberately allows a fist to connect with her shoulder. It is not enough to bruise her skin but it is enough for him to pull back, transform the relentless blows into carefully aimed hatred and even Shepard is impressed. Within moments he goes from uncoiled anger to the clever, fearless turian she followed across half the galaxy and as her arm slams into his chest she can feel his geth hand closing around her other wrist. She wrenches it loose, steps back to catch her breath before aiming a kick at his left shin which forces him to focus on his balance long enough for her to spin around and jab an elbow into his ribs. He hisses, air seeping out from his lungs despite the hard metallic-like carapace and lands a blow to her shoulder blade before she turns again and places a foot behind one of his, pulling her leg back and felling him to the ground as he manages to shove a knee into her gut. She is reluctantly fascinated, not just because he found an opportunity even while falling but by everything he proves to be. This fight is every bit as passionate and furious as their last stand in the Council chambers with the light from exploding ships as their backdrop. 

As she watches him stand up and shake his head, Shepard thinks that if she can just take this, all this desperation and umbrage, and turn it towards the ancient synthetic creatures that so nearly managed to tame this wild and fierce creature with a wrath in his soul that matches her own... if she can do that, perhaps even Saren can redeem himself. 

-  
-

The woman walks away without offering him a hand, perhaps because she knows he would not accept it, and Saren goes back to his cot as members of the ship crew appear one by one. He did not notice that they left, so focused was he on Shepard the moment she appeared and he rationalises that by reducing it to self-preservation; he focused on the most likely threat and kept her in his views... but whether he likes it or not, that is not entirely true. Beneath all the layers of anger and frustration and hatred lies something else, something that is not quite admiration and not quite jealousy but resentment at whatever made her a diamond and him merely a rock. Unyelding, hard, able to crush his enemies, yes... and he is as lethal as she is, as determined and capable, but something within her stubborn human mind separates her from everything he has known and though he pushes the memory down, just as he has during the years in custody, a small part of him remembers that Shepard saw through all of Sovereigns lies and gave Saren a chance and perhaps, because of that and because she offers no apologies and because he has no doubts she will save the entire galaxy whether it wants to be saved by her or not, he can allow himself to follow her lead. For a time. Shepard has proven herself worthy of something very similar to respect. 

He does not admit it, but even that is merely rationalising. Deep within his chest there has been a small, nearly insignificant - insignificant because he won’t allow himself to give in to it - feeling of relief. Two years of crushing loneliness, of being reduced to nothing but a traitor despite all the things he has done for his people and the other Council races, for the _good of the galaxy_ , have been eating away at him, slowly driving him mad. His mind has been empty without the voice of the Reaper there, a solid constant ever since he found the ship two decades previous, and the void has been filled with things he would have rather forgotten. He does not regret the lives he has taken, not even Nihlus’ because it was a necessity when it happened, nor does he regret the death of Benezia. Still, there are things that can haunt even Saren Arterius and he wishes he could escape the intrusive silence.

He would almost rather have Shepard in front of him, armoured and armed to the teeth with that cruelty in her fiery green eyes that sent him to prison, to the most unbearable punishment he could imagine then and can think of now and he has barely finished the thought before she strides through the cargo hold again with that white and red stripe down her arm and determination straightening her spine. Saren realises that more time than he thought has passed, presses his mandibles tightly towards his teeth in anger over losing track of reality. However, he is not left in solitude for long as Shepard walks up to him, this time followed by the woman who brought her back to life and two members of the ship crew carrying a crate.

Miranda waves the people with the crate forward, instructs them to set it down and then allows them to leave. Saren glances at her, merely acknowledging her presence and actions, before looking at Shepard.

“Get your armour on”, she says, jerking her chin at the now opened crate. He looks into it, recognising the familiar shape of a turian chestplate but sees that it is not his own. Of course, that one had holes and tears to accommodate the synthetic parts Sovereign added to him; parts now removed, picked from his flesh and bones by scientists like insects picked from rotten wood by long-beaked birds.

He pulls the armour on, feels as though he can hear a little piece of freedom each time the seals close and despite the armour being too tight in some places and too wide in others, he feels more at ease now than he has for years. 

“I still think this is a bad idea. It’s too soon, you don’t know-” Miranda begins, but is silenced by Shepard holding up her hand. 

“Noted. I’m not expecting trouble this time, so your concern is unnecessary. Besides, you’re there to make sure all your hard work hasn’t been for nothing.”

Saren despises, hates the women for talking as though he is not there - worse, insignificant, and a roar rises in his mind about how he was, whether for good or bad reasons, the most powerful organic in the galaxy for a short time and he deserves more. It is as if Shepard know this, can feel it in her inferior but imposing mind, because she silences this roar by catching the turian’s gaze and tells him that he is to join her and Miranda as they board another ship to ask another person to join the team. He nods. There is opportunity here. If he proves to not be trouble, if he follows this human commander and fights with her she might eventually bring him groundside. Maybe to a world where one lone turian can easily slip away, provided he can find a way to remove the tracker - it is cleverly placed behind his carapace; out of reach for sharp talons or a knife - or at least disrupt its signal. Perhaps he could get off-world again by contacting the Re-

No. He is not that desperate. The thought is habit, remains of two decades with Sovereign. It is not what he wants and he reluctantly realises that his best shot at freedom is to follow Shepard and that is difficult to accept. He has worked alone or been a leader all his life; obeying someone else is alien to him, particularly when this someone is an alien herself... but as he watches her march through the docking tube to the other ship, her back straight and her head proudly held high, he thinks that the fact that the alien is the only person who’s ever managed to best him makes it just that much more bearable.

-  
-

The security guard - a Blue Suns merc, a nobody - barely has time to finish asking Shepard for her guns before all three of them stand with weapon in hand. The pistol Saren has been granted does not have a thermal clip, but the hiss as it unfolds in his grasp is still so resolute, so certain. 

“I’ll relinquish one bullet. Where do you want it?”

It is not a threat, so far from a threat. Shepard’s words hold nothing but a marble-solid promise and the former Spectre at her shoulder is tempted to smile when the ship’s CO arrives, for this other turian - Warden Kuril - cannot look into the Commander’s eyes for more than a few seconds before foolishly allowing her to officially board his vessel loaded with guns. She has faced hordes of geth and walked out alive. She has faced him. But Saren knows that piercing gaze, those eyes like green fire. Greater men and women than this barefaced turian have met them and faltered. Not Saren, though. No, he held her gaze when he intended to end his own life, had once wanted the scorching determination in them to burn the Reaper from his soul. 

They walk through a door, into a narrow corridor that curves like a vein through the body of the ship and as Kuril opens his mouth, Saren tenses.

Shepard has brought him to a prison ship.

He stares at the cell units moving around, barely listens to the Warden (he thought that was an odd title, wondered why it wasn’t Captain or Admiral or Commander) speaking about the security or Jack. Saren feels trapped in his own mind again, a creeping panic climbing up his spine when Kuril leaves and Shepard glances at her two squad members.

Did she and Miranda ask about escape attempts and security protocols because they plan to leave him here? Are the funds from Cerberus money they have payed to ensure that he is kept safe in a box somewhere between worlds?

No. He is paranoid. Shepard is cruel, but not this cruel.

Not this cruel.

If she was she wouldn’t hand out death threats to guards to make them stop beating a prisoner.

She wouldn’t turn the back of her easily cracked skull to him. She is cruel, but not that cruel and not this stupid... and too late, Saren realises that it is not Shepard’s intentions he should have focused on.

“My apologies, Shepard. You’re more valuable as a prisoner than a customer. Not to mention Arterius”, Kuril says and Saren roars in fury, whipping the pistol out on instinct before he remembers that it is useless to him, that he is useless against all these pathetic mercenaries as long as he is without both bullets and biotics and he hates Shepard for possessing both.

“You talked up your noble intentions with this prison. But it turns out you’re a criminal like the rest.” Shepard’s voice is low, hoarse, dangerous as she speaks and Saren can almost appreciate the promise of violence that lie at the edges of her words. 

They roll into cover, Miranda at Shepard’s side. 

“Stay down”, the dark-haired woman tells Saren. “We’ll take care of this.”

“Three guns are better than two. Kill him if he shoots me. I’ll do the same for you”, Shepard interjects and punches a couple of clips from her SMG before tossing them over to the turian, seconds before the first mercs arrive and the familliar, comfortable sound of gunfire rings through his brain.

-  
-

Miranda is not pleased. Not that she ever feels particularly so - accomplished, even satisfied when she’s in a good mood, sure. Never pleased, though, and this situation certainly warrants her to be the exact opposite.

She knew that Shepard would be difficult from the start, of course she did. She is highly intelligent and more than capable of calculating a person’s response to any given situation, provided she has some data to back those calculations up with. Given that she has learned every intimate detail about the woman who is temporarily her commanding officer, down to and including the exact curve of her toenails, Miranda was not surprised that Shepard chose to go after Archangel and take a drink at Afterllife rather than prioritise the locating and extraction of Mordin Solus like the Cerberus officer had suggested. Choosing to bring the ex-Spectre onto the ship had been an unlikely scenario, but not unexpected, and Miranda is very well aware that the choice to bring him here is a deliberate provocation. Shepard does not like Cerberus and strives to prove this every step of the way. It is likely a way to tell herself that she is real and her own and not just a walking, talking heap of flesh and cybernetics that _thinks_ it is Commander Shepard.

All of this is expected. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t frustrating as hell.

Still, Miranda enjoys working with Shepard. She enjoys watching the body she hovered over for two years move, particularly during a fight, because that more than anything is proof that Cerberus has gone above and beyond what anyone thought possible. It isn’t just the first human Spectre using her biotics to charge from one end of the room to the other; it’s a marvel of science, proof of what Cerberus can do for humanity.

She just doesn’t enjoy it right now, because she has to divide her attention between Shepard, their enemies, and Saren, or so she tells herself. In reality, the turian is as reliable as Jacob, at least for the moment. He watches Shepard’s back as she lights the tube-like corridor up with her biotics, a dark shadow against a wall of blue-white light, and fires at every enemy he sees. Considering that he hasn’t been in a fight since before Shepard died, he’s good. Not as good as Miranda, of course, but good. The Commander knows what she’s doing, Miranda will give her that.

Except for when she decides to release every damned prisoner on Purgatory to get to one person.

It’s reckless. Exceptionally so. There is no guarantee that Jack will make it, particularly since she proves to be barely a girl without weapons or armour. The ability to punch through a bulkhead is of little use when bullets are coming in your direction. A small part of Miranda would like to think that Shepard is trusting the Illusive Man’s judgement, that his recommendation to have Jack on the team has something to do with the decision to get the young woman out of cryostasis. Of course, the reality is most likely that Shepard takes the failed attempt to imprison her as an insult to her abilities - honestly, what did Kuril expect when cajoling the Commander with anything less than fifteen guards with rocket launchers? - and she’ll be damned if she doesn’t get what she came here for.

Miranda can appreciate that.

-  
-

“This is for the good of the galaxy!”

Shepard grits her teeth. Her translator is making Kuril’s voice sound so much like Saren’s and she is angry because this man is a petty, pathetic criminal who profits on other people’s misery while indulging in his own illusion of greatness. She doesn’t deny the fact that Purgatory is a good idea, save for the part where prisoners are sold to a life of torture. She may not have any compunction when it comes to killing or placing a well-timed bullet in a non-vital part as a warning, but torture is a thing that gains you nothing, only changes you for the worse. 

This turian is already as bad as they come. He uses his people as cannon fodder, throws them her way while he hides in an impenetrable bubble. It is almost a shame that he didn’t bother with protecting the shield generators better. She only requires a handful of shots before all his shields are down and blue, blue blood pools beneath his lifeless body.

“Let’s go get Jack and get off this ship.”

Miranda and Saren only nod and follow her through more corridors, fight off more guards. But the mercs are disorganised, more concerned with getting off the ship now that their leader’s voice no longer can be heard over the comm and more and more channels go dark. The corridors are littered with corpses of prisoners from every species Shepard has encountered as well as the bodies of several of the Blue Suns. The fighting here has been desperate; it is obvious that they are getting close to the docking area.

And there she is, her fragile frame telling nothing of the raw power that runs through her nervous system. Shepard is very impressed and has no intention of letting the batarian sneaking up on her take this powerhouse down.

The gunshot calls Jack’s attention. For a fleeting second there is something very much resembling fear dancing across the strong features, soon replaced by doubt. Good. She’s not attacking, proving that she’s clever enough to recognise Shepard and her team as strangers as well as gathering that they have no current interest in taking her down.

“What the hell do you want?” 

“I just saved your ass”, Shepard replies. 

Jack has asked a perfectly valid question, but today has not been a good day and Shepard never claimed to be particularly patient or good with people. Neither has this younger woman, apparently, who also proves to have a healthy distrust of Cerberus - which complicates things. Damn Illusive Man and his entire organisation.

“I’m offering to be your friend. You don’t want to be my enemy.” 

“She’ll hunt you to the darkest corners of the galaxy”, Saren states, unbidden, and Shepard is taken by surprise although she is careful not to show it. She has a feeling that something important has changed between them but is uncertain of what. His gaze still clings to the back of her skull, is entangled in her hair, and it is not with good intention.

At least Jack is surprisingly reasonable - of course she, too, realises that her choice is between a burning, dying Purgatory and the sleek Normandy, be she a cerberus vessel or not. Miranda is, expectantly, less reasonable but Shepard has no time or desire to please her XO. If Jack finds a reason to blow up a Cerberus facility, Shepard has no current objections.


End file.
